I lived in Miami for 5 years. Hurricanes cause massive flooding and due to the humidity it is the mildew capital of the USA. I fortunately lived with the cockroaches on the 17th floor but a friend lived in a single story house and he kept his records sandwiched between two cabinets on the floor. Needless to say what happened. By the time the water had receded the stench of mildew was already present. We moved all his records to my flat where we removed them one at a time sprayed them off with tap water, used a spray bottle to rinse them off with distilled water, dried them off gently on a cotton towel then let them air. We stacked them gently in groups of 40 and wrapped them in plastic wrap with a few small holes for aeration. There were maybe 300 records. Eventually he got new sleeves and blank covers for them. Fortunately, his gear was up in the air. The records sounded fine.
500 albums in a basement flood--worth saving?
Hi--just had 6' high (relatively clean) water fill basement during recent hurricane/tropical storm. Lost everything down there including 500 albums: some late 60's rock, 70's & early 80's rock, some jazz and a few classical, most in pretty good shape prior to this. Couple of Original Master Recordings. No turntable at the moment. Insurance not covering. Question: is it worth peeling/discarding album covers, buying 500 new sleeves, buying record cleaning machine (lots of time & labor), or just toss the lot? Are they worth anything without the covers, just inner sleeves (what type are best, paper or plastic?)? What is average value? TIA.